Drag strip gets green light in Nassau County

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NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — Drag racers will have a new place to compete in Northeast Florida. The town of Callahan is getting its first drag racing track. Action New Jax spoke with the Callahan man who’s making this all happen.

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You may have heard the sound of burning rubber on streets and highways. It’s most likely people trying to push their car’s horsepower to the limit, but it’s not street-legal.

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“There’s nowhere you can legally do anything with horsepower,” Callahan Businessman, David Hicken said.

David Hicken is the owner of a go-kart track complex called Speedway in Callahan in Nassau County. He had been waiting for three years to bring a drag racetrack. Now, it’s finally coming.

“We’re going to be breaking ground hopefully in a week or so,” Hicken said. “It should only take about five or six months to get open.”

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Hicken gave us a personal tour of an 8-mile drag racetrack that will be built behind Hicken’s go-kart complex.

“It’s going to be a 50-foot-wide two-lane drag strip,” Hicken said. “It’s going to have jersey walls, which are concrete barriers. It’s going to have a concrete burning area and a concrete starting line.”

This project will cost nearly $1 million. Hicken says it’s going to be worth every penny to see people do wheelies, burnouts, and donuts.

“It is the only place you can legally put your foot to the metal, I guess you can say,” Hicken said.

Currently, the next closest drag track is the National Hot Rod Association in Gainesville.

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Hicken said this nearly $1 million project is expected to be completed in six months of this year.

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